After returning home to Maryland, my head was a jumble of mixed-up memories from our fun time in Iceland. So, here’s my debrief.

Packing for Iceland, given the ever-changing weather conditions that usually suck, is a real trip.

Here’s what you (man or woman) REALLY need to bring for a summer trip:

• Hard shell luggage for walking in the rain from a hotel or bus.

•Long (below knees) & sturdy plastic or rubber poncho. Fancy rain gear, like Helly Hansen or North Face, regardless of the price, does not work in Iceland’s relentless wind & rain!

• Warm wind & water resistant jacket or pullover for fall weather

• Wool or Fleece Sweater

• Two or three long sleeve Under Armour shirts

• One nice long sleeve shirt for dining out

• Swimsuit

• Waterproof windpants (NRS Paddling Pants and Pullover tops are the best)

• Two pairs of jeans

• Wool or fleece gloves

• Wool hat that firmly covers the ears

• Waterproof shoes (Keens)

• Street shoes made for walking

• Socks for every day

• Underwear

• Daypack for hiking

Iceland, even cosmopolitan Reykjavik, is a very casual country and people don’t dress up. So, leave the fancy clothes at home.

Don’t bring anything with short sleeves. It will never get warm enough. And cotton can kill you if it gets wet in such a cold and windy land. If by chance you catch a warm spell, you can always buy an Iceland tee shirt.

I wore shorts the whole time, and I didn’t mind the chill at all. But I ain’t normal. Plus, it meant I didn’t have to worry about rain pants.

You should come expecting nasty weather every day; that way, it won’t seem so ugly, especially when you get one of those cold and windy days without heavy rain. You’ll feel lucky! And a nice day will make you dance for joy. We found that a steady dose of gallows humor helped make every bad situation better. And when all is said and done, there is no place on earth as spectacular and amazingly beautiful as Iceland, so whining is stupid and pointless. Be bold and proud!

Architecture is not Iceland’s strong suit. It looks sort of like a North Pole Japan. Pretty plain. But every structure is clean and sturdy, so it’s ultimately a very pleasant place to visit.

There are two grocery chains in Iceland. The most popular is BONUS, whose logo is a smiling pink pig. The other is KRONAN with a smiling lemon. We shopped in both and thought that KRONAN was far superior—bigger, cleaner, better choices, and cheaper.

We loved the seafood soup and homemade bread that are served almost everywhere. They really do bread well. But after a while, we got tired of lamb and cod. KFC is the only fast-food franchise in the country.

Many hotels feature a free breakfast. They are all pretty much the same and quite good: fresh fruit, sliced meats, cheeses, an assortment of breads and pastries, raw salmon slices, cereals, yogurt, scrambled eggs, and American-style bacon. Unlike most European countries, they like their bacon crispy just like we do.

All in all, Icelanders eat well, and the food, while expensive, is absolutely delicious.

EVERYWHERE!

Most hotels do not have elevators or mini-fridges. The hotels tend to be rather modest and often slightly disjointed. Many have been converted from banks which became superfluous in the last few years when the country went cashless, especially in the heartland,

The musical soundtrack in every restaurant where we ate featured 70s and 80s Rock, like Creedence and Aerosmith, and lots and lots of soul, like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. They also really liked Big Band Sinatra and Dean Martin. Icelanders drink deeply of American retro culture.

The only farm crop is grass. We never saw anything else growing in a field—no corn or soybeans like back in Maryland. Hay is a major production all across Iceland, especially as summer is drawing to a close. The farmers are busily cutting the grass and shrink-wrapping it in a race against time. The circular plastic bales dot the fields like different-colored candies, or they are stacked in ginormous piles by the barns. All this effort goes into feeding their livestock come winter. And winter lasts a very long time in Iceland.

Most of the livestock consists of sheep, and they are either enclosed in fields or allowed to roam the countryside at will. There are surprisingly few given the available grazing land. I mean, there are way more sheep in Scotland or Ireland. But no matter where they may roam, sheep are dumber and lazier than rocks and ignore the passing vehicles just begging to be hit.

There are a fair number of horses in Iceland, though it tends to be somewhat regional. For instance, there are quite a few ranches in the west and the south, but not so many in the north or the east.

What are all the pretty horsies for? Well, hold onto your saddle, little pardners, but while many of the horses you see frolicking about are for riding, a significant number are slaughtered for meat. And foal meat is the most popular cut because it’s tender, like veal.

According to Your Friend in Reykjavik: “Horses comprise about 4% of meat production in the country. Relatively speaking, Icelanders only consume 2% of horse meat compared to other types of meat. About half of the production is exported, with the best bits sent to Switzerland and Japan. The rest is sold domestically. So, Icelanders eat only about 1.5-2 kg of horse meat yearly. Nearly every Icelander has tasted horse meat.”

And horses played a big role in Iceland’s conversion to Christianity. The Church outlawed the eating of horses because the pagan Vikings loved a good horse steak after some serious mayhem. And the ban was only recently removed.

These days, most folks are slightly ashamed to admit they eat horses, and you don’t see it on the menus. You have to ask for it in a hushed whisper.

And bringing up the rear are the cows. There are about 70,000. Almost all are exclusively for the thriving dairy industry which is a big part of Iceland’s economy.

Even though it rained incessantly and the rivers and streams were raging torrents of water, there was no sediment running in the rivers. They ran crystal clear or like glacial milk every day. In Maryland, the rivers turn brown after less than an inch of rain, and in Iceland, they aren’t muddy after a foot of steady rain. Hmmmm…

Okay, the strangest thing we saw in Iceland took place in the rural areas. We called it the “seagull suicides”. Seagulls seem to hurt their feet fairly regularly—let’s say one in a thousand, or so—and it leaves them crippled. If they try to walk, they fall on their faces. It’s sad to watch. We never figured out how they hurt themselves—maybe they got clipped by a car or smashed on the rocks in a big wave. But they will sit calmly by the side of the road or trail like they are guarding their nest, when in point of fact they can’t move without doing the painful face plant dance. Apparently, they eventually can’t stand it anymore, so they go sit serenely in the middle of a busy road and wait to be run over by a car. Then again, maybe they’re just fed up with the lousy weather.

Inna and I sat down after the trip and asked ourselves how Iceland could up its game. Here are a few helpful suggestions.

1. Dome the cities. Nobody in their right mind would come to Iceland in the winter. I mean, even the summer ain’t so hot. But if they built giant, controlled-climate, glass domes over the cities and main attractions, like they’re doing in the Dubai desert, the visitation to Iceland would go right through the roof.

2. Introduce big game, like bears and wolves, into the rural environments. Iceland’s north is devoid of life other than the occasional sheep or horse. I have never traveled through such a wild country and not seen even a goddamn rabbit or deer. It’s time to add some serious predators and prey to the game.

3. Plant some trees. Lots & lots of evergreens and birch. Okay, I get it. The winds are brutal, but some folks have had great success growing trees. So, it can be done. Just lash them down with metal stakes and please, for the love of god, add some greenery to the sometimes brutally dull scenery.

4. Train some whales to come to specially-created harbor feeding zones where they can be easily seen. Whale-watching expeditions are way too long and too cold. And that’s on one of the ten days a year that are moderately nice in Iceland. When it’s wet, cold, and windy—meaning all the time—going out into the Arctic Ocean in a small boat is batshit crazy. So create natural, in the ocean, Sea Worlds. Put one in every seaside village. It would be a great boost to the rural economies, not just the chosen few like Húsavík in the whaling grounds. And put them in all the Eastern fjords too. Construct a sturdy mesh net to keep the buggers inside and then train a wide assortment of whales, not just the humpbacks, to come at specific times when called. Hell, put some great white sharks in there too and watch the killer whales go to town. This way, you wouldn’t have to freeze your ass off on a bouncing boat and you could sit in a nice warm restaurant and all the whales would come to you.

Smile!

We awoke to the third straight day of wind and rain—we only had one sunny day the whole trip, and that’s when we were sailing to the Arctic Circle dressed in moon suits, so it really didn’t matter. And while the lousy weather bummed us out a bit at times, it didn’t stop us from seeing what we planned to see. That said, it does start to wear you down after a while. It makes you want to slap a puffin around.

About thirty minutes south of Vik, we came to the powerful Skogafoss Waterfall. The Skogafoss Waterfall marks the beginning of the 16-mile long Fimmvörðuháls Trail, or “Waterfalls Way”, which ends in Thórsmörk. Apparently, it’s a waterfall conveyor belt.

We admired the thundering cascade from the bottom, and then Inna climbed the long staircase to the top of the waterfall to get a completely different perspective. I wasn’t interested anymore. Upon her return an hour later, she said she was lucky she didn’t bust her ass coming down the slippery steps.

While she was huffing her way up the stairs, I chatted with two young couples from Hong Kong in a camper van. Not that it matters, but the majority of tourons we encountered on our journey were Asians and India Indians.

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Like the Chinese kids, most people were driving counterclockwise on the Ring Road. I’m not sure why, other than the fact that it’s the quickest way to the Golden Circle, a loop drive popular with folks wanting to do an outing fairly near Reykjavik.

The problem as I see it is that you immediately start seeing attractions that you just have to check out, and you can easily burn up lots of time before your trip even gets started. Before you know it, the day is gone and you have only covered a hundred miles or so. That means you will have to drive many more hours each day for the rest of the trip because you burned up so much time right at the beginning. We went clockwise on the Ring Road and it’s not as action-packed at the beginning—there’s only Glymur Falls—so you can cover a lot of ground at the start of your long journey. Plus, we were doing the Ring Road in nine days rather than five which makes a huge difference.

Our next stop was Seljalandsfoss Waterfall, which is the one you can walk behind. Lines of curious fools were slipping and sliding their way through the slick mud and rocks inside a dripping cave under the cliff where they could see the water come crashing—and I mean CRASHING—down only 20-30 feet away.

Keep in mind it had been raining for three days straight. The rivers were swollen to the point of bursting. Every river we saw, no matter the size, was running at a Class 5 level, like Lava Falls in the Grand Canyon, the largest rapid in North America. Iceland has a zillion rivers and everyone looked completely out of control. They were unrunnable in a raft, or any watercraft other than maybe a squirt boat. They weren’t so much rapids as maelstroms.

So, imagine what the Seljalandsfoss Waterfall looked like, and then imagine getting near such a beast. Imagine a stray rock being launched from the top and you standing below. Now imagine trying to dodge the thundering side waterfalls in order to escape from the backside. Hey, many—but not most—people were doing it. But not us.

And to be honest, after seeing hundreds of waterfalls on our magical mystery tour, I was sick of waterfalls. To hell with waterfalls! Who needs ‘em?

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And we still had a busy day ahead of us. The last fifty miles to Reykjavik were a blur of busy roads, two-lane bridges, industrial farms, and the Reykjavik satellite towns like Selfoss and Hveragerði. There were even a few stretches of freeway.

We had Google Maps locked in thanks to Inna. She had purchased a month of Sprint’s “International Plan” service for $50. So, we always knew where we were going.

We drove directly to the Hotel Odinsve in the Historic District. It was 2:30 and they let us check in.

We returned our trusty rental car to Budget Command Central near the cruise port. And then we caught a cab to the BSI bus station, about six miles away, for $45.

At the BSI Bus Terminal, we caught our Reykjavik Expeditions tour bus to the Blue Lagoon. We had booked a package for $150 per person through “Get Your Guide” which included the following:

• Round-trip bus from Reykjavik

• Blue Lagoon entry ticket

• Towel

• Silica mud mask

• 1 drink at the water bar (for adults only)

All we needed to bring was our swimming suit and the whole thing went seamlessly.

The Blue Lagoon is Iceland’s #1 attraction and it’s definitely a must-see. It’s a giant money machine and it’s crowded all the time. But its huge amoeba-shaped pools have lots of nooks and crannies where you can cavort and be virtually alone. The water is warm and in certain spots, it’s close to hot. They pump the 100-degree geothermal seawater directly from 2,000 meters beneath the surface of the earth. It’s quite salty and that’s what gives the water its distinctive milky blue color, along with the iconic white mud that is one of Blue Lagoon’s hallmarks.

We spent three hours at the Lagoon and immensely enjoyed what is certainly one of the Earth’s unique experiences.

Our journey ended as it had begun, with us passing by the nearby Sundhnúksgígar volcano eruption that was still spitting fire and attracting large crowds. Long lines of Darwin Award contestants were streaming like excitable ants toward the active volcano. Because, as we were told time and time again, it was perfectly safe, in spite of the fact the authorities had evacuated the nearby town of Grindavik a week before.

Inna and I had given this ambitious trip our best. We had experienced the full-on “Fire & Ice” experiences of Iceland. And while the weather pretty much sucked, it was well worth the effort to see so many different zippity-doo-dah worlds all in one welcoming country. And we proved yet again that we ain’t no puskadroms.

About fifteen minutes south of the Hotel Laki sits another very cool planet called Fjadrargljufur Canyon.

It was only misting, so we didn’t hesitate to do the mile-long hike along the ridge above the spacy canyon where the rock walls seemed alive, like large twisted black animals covered in a thick green moss and grass resembling velour. Inna kept wanting to pet them.

There were some amazing viewpoints where we looked down on water gone mad as several honking rivers converged inside the 400-foot-deep, half-mile-long chasm, and curved around the strange rock pinnacles and towering cliffs as if doing battle.

The canyon was free, but they charged for parking. That is normal at all the big attractions. And it’s always the same price: $7 for a passenger car. There was a sign by the trailhead that we scanned to download the parking app, and then we paid with our credit card. It couldn’t have been easier. And they instantly sent us an email as a record of the transaction.

In Iceland, every transaction is made with a credit card. No cash! It’s super simple.

But we noticed at every park where they charged for parking that most people didn’t pay. I guess they figured that since they were in the middle of nowhere and there was no attendant, they could just get away without paying. And that really pissed me off, until I noticed there were small, somewhat easy-to-miss, cameras mounted on metal posts at each exit. If you didn’t pay, the parking gods would know, and they had a photo of your license number, so you were going to get a ticket. Karma usually wins out.

Between Kirkjubæjarklaustur and Vik, we stumbled upon the Laufskálavarða lava ridge with its curious piles of thousands of lava rocks, large and small. These rock cairns were made by weary and terrified travelers crossing the Mýrdalssandur desert and were intended to bring good luck.

We got out to explore this spooky area in the middle of a barren landscape, sitting at the southern edge of a mountainous glacier, and I clearly felt the spirits of the dead. This was a place of magic, for sure.

When Inna went to take a stone from one of the piles, I said, “Don’t you dare! You can add one if you like, but don’t mess with past wishes and dreams.”

We both offered our own stone offerings and then boogied. The place gave me the creeps.

Near Vik along the Ring Road, we took a turnoff for Reynisfjara Beach, passing a pretty red and white church near the water. This black sand beach is most famous for the Reynisdrangar Columns, huge hexagonal stacks made of black basalt, rising up out of the water like along the Oregon coast.

The ocean surf was the mightiest and scariest I have ever seen. When waves hit the shore, the ground literally shook. And even though we were standing well away from the shoreline, we were constantly on alert not to get hit with a “sneaker wave”, a.k.a killer wave that occurs frequently (about every ten minutes) at Reynisfjara Beach. They break much higher than the previous waves and arrive without warning. They can sweep an unsuspecting person out to sea in a matter of seconds where certain death awaits in such paralyzingly cold water.

The massive waves pound this particular area because the beach actually does a 90-degree turn at the stacks, and the right angle creates monster waves.

And, yes, we saw many people running in panic when they had gotten too close to the water, trying to snap that perfect photo as a wave broke higher than usual. The Darwin Award contestants are everywhere it seems.

We walked south down the black sand beach toward the Dyrholaey Arch and Cliffs but turned around after about thirty minutes because it had been a long day and dinner was calling back in the nearby town of Vik.

Vik is a peaceful seafront village in the fertile Myrdal Valley, pleasantly perched along a dramatic stretch of wave-battered coastline, quaintly poised between glacier-topped mountains, rugged sea cliffs, and black sand beaches.

Just past the city police station, we stumbled upon Vik’s best eatery, the Soup Factory, where we had ourselves some very tasty soup, black bread, and Gull beer after a very long day of hiking in the rain.

And right next to the Soup Factory, we found Vik’s most popular attraction. According to their colorful brochure: “The award-winning Lava Show is the only live show of its kind in the world – bringing the live experience of real lava to life in the most captivating, educational, and thrilling way imaginable. By superheating real lava up to 1100°C (2000°F) we recreate a volcanic eruption but take away all the dangers. In addition to learning about Icelandic volcanoes and how they have shaped the culture of the Icelandic people, you will see real lava flowing into the showroom right in front of you, hear it sizzling, smell the melting minerals, and feel the intense heat that radiates from it. A must-do experience for everyone visiting the land of ice and fire. Now in two locations, in Reykjavik and in Vík, on the South Coast with two completely different storylines. Vík is smaller, more intimate and dives into the mysteries of Katla volcano. Reykjavík is grander, more luxurious, and addresses the latest volcanic activity on the Reykjanes peninsula. Choose one or visit both – you won’t regret it.”

Inna and I chose the path of regret.

The Lava Show parking lot was also the staging area for several DANGER! DANGER! adventure excursions, like glacier climbing, ice caving, and snorkeling between the continents. Oh boy!

After poking around tiny downtown Vik, we drove up a steep hill to check out the Vík í Mýrdal Church where we caught an amazing panoramic view of Vik and the back side of the Reynisdrangar stacks. The rain even stopped for a few minutes and a faint sun tried valiantly to bust through the clouds.

The church was built in 1929, which is old for Iceland, and anyone can book the church for an Icelandic wedding. The doors, however, were locked tight.

Vik is the geographical and cultural dividing line between Reykjavik (the south) and wild Iceland (the north). After traveling the Ring Road through lands and waters where life just sort of meanders along at a rather genial pace, Vik, a city of only 318 people, seemed like the bustling big city.

And right on cue, the electricity went out in the whole town as we were unpacking our bags in our hotel room after dinner. And it stayed off for the next four hours. Nobody knew why it went off, or when it might come back on again. But if such a thing could happen in summer, what the hell do they do in winter when snow cyclones sweep the island regularly? What’s Plan B?

I’m not sure we are prepared for what comes next, but I guess we will all find out sooner or later because Iceland has a way of exposing our planet’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I think it’s just a matter of time.

We only had about a two-and-a-half-hour drive today, with a major stop about an hour out. But it was raining to beat the band the whole time and visibility was pretty much non-existent. So, the journey was a bit sketchy at times.

We were driving through Vatnajokull National Park, and under nicer weather conditions, I’m sure we would have had some stellar views of the Vatnajokull Glacier in the distance. This glacier is Iceland’s largest, covering 14% of the country. Unfortunately, we saw absolutely nothing except a cowabunga road.

To make matters worse, there was a low-hanging fog that limited visibility even more. The road had some deep puddles that would jolt the steering wheel and attempt to launch our little car into a lava bed when we hit them at speed (55 mph). And to add a bit more thrills and chills, there were a bunch of one-lane bridges scattered hither and yon, which would have been fine if we could have seen the far side, but felt like playing Russian Roulette when we couldn’t.

There were no towns, no mountains, no nothing. At least that’s how it looked to us.

There was a small gas station and cafe somewhere out in the middle of nowhere and the place was mobbed. Apparently, everyone was looking for sanctuary from the rain and fog. We just kept on rolling, rather than get caught in a COVID trap.

I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when we finally arrived at the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Diamond Beach.

It was still raining hard but we no longer noticed such silly inconveniences. We just put on our crappy rain gear (I don’t care what they advertise, nothing other than rubber or plastic is truly waterproof in the steady Icelandic wind and rain!) and headed out into a mob scene.

The Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon is one of the most unique (and popular) sights in Iceland. It features icebergs floating out to sea and beached on the black volcanic sand. Some were streaked brown and black with sand and dirt. Others were shiny and clear. They mobbed together in the blue lagoon as if planning a jailbreak.

We climbed a muddy hill for a better view of the entire area and noticed several happy harbor seals frolicking in the lagoon. The whole scene was totally surreal, like some Disney creation.

It was a three-ring circus around the parking lot with tour operators hawking walking tours, zodiac boat tours, and even Duck Boat tours. We weren’t interested.

It might have been raining but we didn’t care. We wanted more! So we followed a lava stone trail along the river which led from the lagoon to the ocean.

It was amusing to watch the icebergs drifting downstream and then getting slammed by the incoming current. The icebergs first stopped, then started spinning lazy circles as if confused, before getting slowly pushed back into the lagoon from whence they came. Some even flipped upside down, exposing their psychedelic blue bottoms.

The river trail led under the Ring Road bridge to the ocean where the black sandy beach was littered with shiny icebergs the size of baseballs. They glittered against the black sand beach, and even in the gloomy rain, they really did look like glittering gemstones. That’s why it’s called “Diamond Beach“. They were the wave-smashed fragments from the larger icebergs that made it from the lagoon to the ocean. And you could pick them up and even give ‘em a good lick. The ice was over a thousand years old and the cleanest and tastiest water you could ever drink on earth. I couldn’t resist.

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I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that up until a few days ago, this was where you could catch an ice cave tour. But that was before two knucklehead Americans were killed when they were crushed by falling ice. Since then, all the ice cave tours have been shut down while the matter is investigated by the powers that be. The Icelanders are quick to point out that the operator was an American who took risks they would never take. Yeah, maybe.

But when we were preparing for our Iceland trip, we watched a YouTube video about how much fun could be had on an ice cave hike, and I said to Inna, “That’s for Darwin Award contestants. I wouldn’t crawl into a melting ice cave at the point of a gun. It’s dangerous as shit.”

Well, stupid is as stupid does.

We subsequently learned that the American tour operator did in fact carve a renegade trail into the glacier and then started leading tours which ultimately ended in disaster. But we also found out that ice cave tours had only been offered in the winter until COVID almost destroyed the tour companies’ livelihoods. So, think about that if you decide to go strolling inside a thawing glacier in summer.

A few minutes farther south from Jokulsarlon, there was the Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon, where we could get much closer to the glacier than at Jokulsarlon, and there were better views of all the cracks and crevices. But we were sopping wet and needed some serious car time to dry off.

We drove through the fog and rain, catching only quick glimpses of the terrain passing by. It was like a really boring, and yet stressful, video.

By the time we arrived at our destination in Kirkjubæjarklaustur, we were finally dry and we checked into the splendid Hotel Laki where we settled in for some farm-style hospitality.

The Laki area is infamous in geological circles. Between June 1783 and February 1784, there were a series of eruptions in the region around Mt. Laki that were some of the biggest and most poisonous in historic times. Over the course of eight months, there were ten eruptions, creating 135 craters and two vast lava fields. And the consequences were enormous for Iceland, as 75% of the domestic animals and 20% of the human population soon died.

The sulfurous cloud from the eruption eventually covered most of North America and Europe, leading to acid rain defoliation and extensive crop failures. The overall temperature of the planet was lowered by two degrees and the effects lasted nearly three years, ultimately impacting all of the planet.

And today, Laki has some wonderful hotels and guest houses where we can all pretend that everything’s gonna be alright.

The Eastern Fjords of Iceland will bring you to your knees. The landscape is overpowering because everything towers over you at close quarters without any space to measure scale. And it smells different, like fish and freshwater mixed with cut grass and the ocean. Sounds get swallowed by the immensity of the land and water. Light swirls and throbs with something much stronger than different colors. It’s like walking into the biggest church on earth and you’re the only one there. I often wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

Up until we got to the FJORDLAND, our journey was defined by the stops at the famous attractions—Godafoss, Dettifoss, Akureyri, Lake Mývatn, the Dimmuborgir Lava formations—distinct places on a map. But the eastern fjords are a dreamscape of ten majestic peninsulas jutting into the Norwegian Sea. From outer space they look like ten arthritic fingers with dark blue fjords dividing the oddly-shaped peninsulas. They aren’t a specific spot, but rather, a moving target.

Scattered at the water’s edge are small fishing villages where the lifestyle is not just simpler, it’s deliberate. And it takes a sturdy person to live in such a place.

There’s Breiðdalsvík which is nestled in a picturesque harbor with hunkered-down homes. We stopped for lunch in Djúpivogur where we caught some great views of Berufjörður Fjord and the tiny toy ferry that services the isolated Isle of Papey where there’s a lighthouse, a private house, a church, an automated weather station, and a large colony of Atlantic puffins. Papey is said to be named after the monks called Papar.

Every village in FJORDLAND has a small fleet of brightly painted fishing boats that look way too small to work in the angry ocean. But they undoubtedly do. Talk about some hard crabs! And there is usually at least one fish processing factory where large vessels take on shipments for Europe and beyond.

The variety of fish in Iceland’s waters is a wonder to behold. I had never heard of many of the fish appearing on the menus of the restaurants where we ate, like wolffish, plaice, redfish, lumpfish, saithe, whiting, and capelin.

As we drove along the Ring Road, hugging the edges of the shimmering fjords, we also saw expansive salmon farms, taking up long stretches of the fjords, where millions of salmon are raised inside ocean nets. Salmon is big business in FJORDLAND. But the whole nasty business is also quite controversial because the nets allow the free flow of diseases into the wild fishery, and an escape of thousands of a Norwegian strain of salmon last year from a FJORDLAND fish farm has already spread genetically modified fish into 32 rivers.

According to “The Guardian: “The escape – at a pen in Patreksfjörður owned by Arctic Fish, one of the country’s largest salmon-farming companies, which is owned by Norwegian salmon giant Mowi – has reignited calls from environmentalists, sport fishers and some politicians to restrict or ban open-pen fish farming. It is not the first big escape: just last year, another salmon farming company, Arnarlax, was fined £705,000 for not reporting an escape of 81,000 fish in 2021.”

Right now, money and jobs for the rural economies are doing the talking, as would be expected.

The next biggest economic player in FJORDLAND is aluminum. International behemoths, like Alcoa and Rio Tinto, ship raw bauxite to Iceland where it is turned into aluminum. Many small villages like Reyðarfjörður are home to big-boy factories, churning out building materials for the world. Why Iceland? It’s simple: Cheap power and less regulatory oversight than in the EU.

FJORDLAND constantly reminded me of the Scottish Highlands. The landscape is remarkably similar though more overpowering and less green. And they both share the Norwegian Sea. Unfortunately, the people are nothing like the Scotts. The Scotts are quite chatty and born poets. But not the people of the eastern fjords in Iceland. They are the strong silent type.

That said, the people seem genuinely happy, even if they aren’t exactly friendly. They are what you might call “reserved”, and they seem to be wound up rather tight. When you wave at them in passing, they usually don’t wave back. And while they are rather gabby amongst themselves, they ghost most strangers. And it’s not a matter of language because they teach English from an early age in all Icelandic schools. So, almost all Icelanders speak fluent English.

Inna said, “They’re doers, not talkers.” Yeah, maybe. They definitely follow the cold weather characteristic of being inherently industrious. They reminded me of the maniacs from the great state of Maine.

Inna described them best. “They don’t have much, but what they do have is of high quality. And they don’t need or want more from life. And that’s why there is such a deep sense of peace about the place.”

There is also a certain eccentricity in each village. For instance, the hotel we stayed in in Eskifjodur was a former bank and the layout was a bit odd. To get to our room we walked down some steps and through a dark corridor that led us past the old bank vault filled with cheap clown and horse paintings, and then up two flights of steps—few hotels in Iceland have elevators—to a small wing of former offices that were now hotel rooms. The receptionist, a sweet young lady with a friendly disposition, gave us a key to the front door because she had to go home and cook dinner for her family.

Each house in the small FJORDLAND villages usually sits on a good-sized grass yard. Most are tidy and well-taken care of, though some have boats or fishing gear scattered around with careless abandon. And small greenhouses have become quite popular, allowing folks to harvest some cheap veggies year-round.

The average income in Iceland is $5,500 a month. Take THAT America! But wages need to be high because EVERYTHING is terribly expensive. We thought prices were high in Hawaii, but they are much higher in Iceland.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in Iceland in the winter. Of course, I live in Florida every winter, so I’m probably not a good judge when it comes to enduring cold weather. But apparently escape isn’t part of the Iceland life equation.

At the headlands of each fjord, there are meticulously maintained farms that had us scratching our heads, going, “How could you live out here without going crazy? There’s no place to shop, no movie theater, no neighbors, no nothing, and the weather totally sucks. You’d be stranded out here for months on end. What would you do?”

And on the subject of crazy, we saw many cyclists with their bikes laden down with bulky panniers, bicycling around FJORDLAND. Having ridden my bike twice across the U.S., I can say without fear of contradiction that every person who does it is nuts, and lying if they say they enjoyed the ride. It is not uncommon to get two or three days of non-stop rain. And wind? We’re talking about a country that can’t grow trees because it’s too windy. And hilly? Forget it. Every cyclist we passed looked miserable and ready to die. I waved and they scowled, and I felt no pity for them because five minutes of weather research would tell you to find some other place to go touring on your bike. I would sooner walk around Iceland than bike.

Arts & Crafts are big in every FJORDLAND village. They are pretty much all the same: a small nondescript building selling Icelandic wool sweaters, gloves, and hats; baseball caps with a whale or puffin logo; folklore books about faeries and trolls; hand-painted greeting cards; candles; paintings of birds and fish; hand-carved wooden bird statues; sketchy local sauces and spices; knitted towels; and weird knick-knacks you might find in a hoarder’s house. These shops are quite popular with the tour bus crowds and I think it’s a match made in heaven.

We spent the night in Höfn, home to almost every fish processing company in Iceland. And every plant looked abandoned. I didn’t see a single soul. Maybe they only work at certain times.

But there were two very interesting attractions in Höfn.

The first was a ginormous indoor soccer complex with several artificial turf fields. The fields were lined and there were goals and balls. But the place was completely empty. I kicked a ball around and scored some easy goals before heading on to a monument by the sea, commemorating the first around-the-world airplane flight that finished its 5-month and 22-day epic journey from Seattle, Washington when they landed safely in the waters off nearby Mikely Island. It remains the most important thing that ever happened in this part of the world.

But the highlight of our stop in Höfn, was our dinner at the Pakkus restaurant where we dined on their famous langoustine dinner. We had never heard of a langoustine.

Langoustine are known variously as the Norway lobster, Dublin Bay prawn, and the shlobster (shrimp-lobster). The langoustine is a slim, coral-colored lobster that grows up to 10 inches long and is the most important commercial crustacean in Europe. It lives in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and parts of the Mediterranean Sea.

They are rather expensive. We paid $75 for about 8 langoustine tails oven-grilled in Icelandic butter, garlic and parsley, served with a baked sweet potato, fried potatoes, some local bread, and tzatziki lathered in cold langoustine sauce. It was out of this world!

All in all, FJORDLAND might not grab the Iceland headlines when people tell you where you should go, but it totally rocked our world. And it will rock your’s too!

When someone tells you they drove the Ring Road around Iceland’s outside perimeter, the first question you should ask is: “In how many days?” Anything less than eight days, and your next question should be, “How many hours did you drive each day?” Their answer will be something like eight to ten hours a day. And that’s certifiably crazy if you ask me.

When I put our trip together, I started with the premise that we wouldn’t drive more than three hours a day—and preferably less as the trip goes along because your tolerance to driving diminishes. It takes some serious route planning to target the cool sites and put them together in a manageable itinerary that doesn’t turn your vacation into a tedious jumble of discomfort and leave you driving your ass off. I enjoy putting together such a travel plan and I’m quite good at it.

We encountered many people—especially travelers taking very expensive guided tours—doing the Ring Road circle jerk in five days, and that’s akin to paying big bucks to have someone torture you every day for a week.

And here’s another thing to consider: the Ring Road is a very unpredictable and unforgiving road to navigate. It’s a drive that requires skill and your constant attention. The road is narrow and it’s raised about twenty feet above the surrounding landscape, meaning, if you lose control or veer off the road, you are quickly going airborne. Then there are the sleepwalking sheep that hang out along the edges of the road waiting for Godot, the extreme weather, one-lane bridges, blind turns, twists and turns, and the occasional slow-moving farm tractor taking up the whole road.

Don’t get me wrong. The road is well maintained, though it puddles up after rain, and it can feel like you’re suddenly hitting a goddamn wall if you’re driving too fast. I have never driven a more interesting and entertaining road. Its natural beauty is like nothing else you will ever see because Iceland wears its big boy pants every second of every day. It is without a doubt, the greatest road show on earth. But it can bite you in the ass without warning!

Traveling around Iceland is a constant tradeoff between driving and stopping to see the wonders of nature. If you’re driving half the day, that leaves little time to get out and stroll around, much less hike. And many places of interest require at least an hour of walking out and back. So, do the math.

To give you a sense of the remote nature of the northern section of the Ring Road, there are these amazing cairns consisting of large basalt blocks that stand about waist high. In the past, Icelandic settlers relied on foot or horseback travel, as there were no roads and only sheep trails crisscrossed the unforgiving landscape. To aid navigation, they built cairns, which became crucial for finding one’s way through fog, snow, or rain.

Today’s 3-hour fun fest drive consisted of geysers, a geothermal power plant, a blue lagoon crater, Europe’s most powerful waterfall, and some high-end hot springs baths along a majestic lake, ending at a tiny fishing village at the very edge of civilization.

The Leirhnjúkur Lava Fields and Geothermal Area are as close to another planet as you will ever see. The landscape is orange nothingness with streaked snow cone hills in the background and gray bubbling sulfur pools interspersed with nasty mini-geysers that never stop hissing and spitting stinky steam into the air. This place puts Yellowstone to shame. And it was free, like everything we had visited so far in Iceland! They don’t charge to get into their parks.

Obviously, this is an area of mega geothermal activity. And here’s why.

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The planet’s longest mountain range, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, is rising up between the American (North Atlantic Plate) and European (Eurasian Plate) which are moving apart at the rate of about 2 cm a year. Magma from the earth’s core is filling the void and it’s all happening under and up through the surface of Iceland’s tortured terrain.

And to illustrate this science lesson, our next stop was the Krafla Power Plant where they produce gobs of power by piping geothermal gas to a handsome red power plant, where they make steam that spins the mighty turbines, which produce cheap electricity. From the hill above the facility, it looked like a toy power plant you might see on a train set.

On a crumbling orange cinder mountain above the power plant sits the Viti Crater, yet another component of the Krafla volcanic system. A bright blue lake fills this crater, and you can walk around the ridge where you’ll pass a few other hot springs and steam vents. However, if it has rained recently, the place turns into a giant mud ball. The hikers looked like they were wearing floppy clown shoes and it was genuinely amusing to those of us who were wise enough to avoid the muddy rim trail.

Our next stop, Dettifoss, was about thirty minutes away and is one of those must-see attractions along the Ring Road. Everybody does it, so you are going to have lots of company no matter when you go.

Dettifoss is Europe’s most powerful waterfall. I’m not really sure what the hell that means. I think they just like to say that every major waterfall is the biggest or baddest something or other, and that’s cool. We all want to be special.

It’s about a half-mile hike from the crowded car park to the falls, but like at the Godafoss Waterfall, there are trails all over the place, some high and some low, and nobody really knows where they’re going, so the tourons spread out. But once you get to the falls it gets pretty crowded, though it doesn’t really matter because it is so incredibly, dare I say “powerful”, that it will stop you in your tracks and take your breath away. It’s not as tall or majestic as Niagara Falls, but it packs a pretty punch. And it creates a rain storm of spray, so you really can’t stay there very long without getting soaked.

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Now came the driving part of the day. It was two hours to the Vok Baths near the lakeside town of Egilsstader and the Ring Road took us through a myriad of phantasmagorical landscapes—Mars, bottomless canyons, barren nothingness, raging rivers, lava beds, glacial lakes, green grass farms dotted with black and white sheep, and two thousand-feet-tall snow-capped ridges where powerful waterfalls flowed and tumbled down the rocky mountain sides every mile or so. We must have seen fifty quarter-mile-long cascades in a 20-mile stretch of highway. After a while, we were like, “Yeah. Whatever.”

The Vok Baths were the perfect way to end a busy day of driving and hiking. They bill themselves as “Iceland’s only geothermal floating baths”. Yeah, maybe. It resembles some California health spa or cosmic retreat—the kind of place where you might see some of the beautiful people cavorting. It’s modern chic, with large tinted glass windows and slick stone surfaces. It even had Japanese ting-ting music playing softly over the PA. I thought it was vaguely pretentious but in a welcoming way. And who cares anyway? It’s about the baths, not all that other stuff. And the floating metal baths were cool. And by that I mean they were not hot springs. They were warm baths. There was a poolside bar with stone tables in the water to hold your smoothies, plus two floating infinity pools ending at the silvery lake. There was even “healthy” algae growing in the water. And you could jump straight into the nut-crunching cold water of Lake Urridavatn. Inna warned me that I’d have a heart attack if I jumped in such cold water, but I took the polar bear plunge just the same. We spent several very enjoyable hours at the Vok Baths getting clean and refreshed.

We got some expensive gas in Egilsstader ($9 a gallon)—HELLO, AMERICA!!!— and then took a splendid detour along Scenic Route 92 to our hotel on a lovely fjord in the storybook fishing village of Eskifjodur. It reminded us of the secluded and laidback Isle of Mull in western Scotland. It felt like we were staying on the very edge of human existence. It was the end of the proverbial line.

We ate dinner at Randulf’s Seahouse on a dock above Eskifjardara Fjord. It was a former herring house where Norwegians lived seasonally, processing herring. It felt like we had suddenly been transported to Scandinavia in the 1830s. Half the menu featured their specialty dishes, reindeer meatballs, and other reindeer delights. I opted for the Seafood Soup and a wee dram of Balvenie scotch.

Like earthbound time travelers, we had landed in an old world where people ate reindeer and wild fish in lamp-lit wooden barns.

What could possibly come next?

We awoke to a steady rain and it didn’t stop for the next 12 hours. It was only about 40 degrees, but there was no wind. So, we could be, as Inna likes to say, giant puskadroms (pussies), or we could don the ol’ rain gear and hit the volcanic trail.

The area surrounding Lake Myvatn has the highest concentration of volcanic and geothermal sights in Iceland. In one day you can explore pseudocraters, smashed rock formations, and hallucinogenic lava fields, hike up and around a volcanic crater, dip in a thermal pool in a cave, see mud pools and steam vents, spy a lake in a volcano, hike a lava area from another world, and finish the day relaxing at the Myvatn Nature Baths.

We began our soggy day at the Grjotagja Lava Cave and Geothermal Spring. Grjotagja Cave comes with an added surprise, a natural geothermal spring inside.

The parking lot was jammed because they filmed some episodes of “Game of Thrones” inside the cave. I didn’t watch the series after they beheaded Ned Stark, so I don’t know. But there was a line of people at the cave entrance and only room for about five people down below. We eventually climbed down some slippery boulders to a cave about the size of a large living room filled with a sulphury, hot stew pool of the weirdest color blue I’ve ever seen. It was interesting in an “I was there” kind of way.

Our next stop was the totally unique Dimmuborgir Lava formations.

It was raining hard when we arrived and the parking lot was filled with tour buses and cars, but everyone was hanging out at the cafe/gift shop.

We hiked for an hour through the “Dark Fortress” wonderland filled with strange and twisted formations of black lava. There were caves, penises, pillars, peep sights, and a double-arch “church” tunnel at the end. And there was this curly-haired, quarter-of-an-inch-tall, yellow-green moss growing like fur across huge expanses of the lava fields. Talk about enchantingly weird!

Dimmuborgir was formed by a volcanic eruption 2,300 years ago.

The lava passed over a lake, causing it to boil. The steam shattered parts of the lava, leaving large stacks of rock and many caves and caverns.

Dimmuborgir is often compared to a medieval castle, with its many hidden chambers and its turret towers. It reminded me of the weird sandstone hoodoos at Bryce National Park, but I’ve never seen carved basalt like that anywhere else on Earth.

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Iceland bubbles with weirdness. I found the following in a “Guide To Iceland” which sheds light on the pre-Christian world of folklore that once defined Icelandic culture.

“Lava caves are allegedly the homes of the nation’s brutal and vile trolls. The most famous of these were the half-troll, half-ogre Grýla and her submissive husband Leppalúði. Grýla was renowned for her insatiable appetite for children, and her gigantic pet cat that would eat children over the Christmas period for not getting any clothes (encouraging kids to finish their weaving, knitting and sewing chores before the season set in). Grýla and Leppalúði had thirteen sons who lived in Dimmuborgir and are now known as the ‘Icelandic Santa Clauses’ or Yule Lads. On the thirteen nights before Christmas, these trolls come one-by-one to terrorize Icelanders, each with their own strategy after which they were named. Sheep-Colt Clod, for example, would harass livestock; Skyr-Gobbler would steal and lick the house’s supplies of yogurt-like skyr; and Window-Peeper would stare into houses, looking for things to burgle. Like most frightening Icelandic stories, the Yule Lads were most likely created to keep children from going out into the cold Icelandic winter nights, where many disappeared without a trace for centuries. As the nation modernized, they became mischievous tricksters rather than devilish monsters. Now, they have been ‘Americanised’; rather than traditional Icelandic garb, they wear Santa costumes, and although they still steal skyr, they now also bring gifts.”

Well, that’s pretty much Iceland in a nutshell.

By the time we finished the two-mile loop trail, we were soaked to the bone. So we stopped in the cafe for some warm bread and soup, and marveled at all the tourons, young and old alike, in their expensive rain gear, sitting around eating, rather than hiking in the rain. Many even brought along their trekking poles for dining. We had only encountered maybe twenty people on the trail. And the Japanese were by far the most amusing. They had no rain gear other than cheap ponchos and pink umbrellas. They were laughing and snapping photos like little kids. And best of all, they were not puskadroms.

We were about as wet as you could get at that point, the soup had warmed our spirits, and there was another much-heralded natural attraction nearby, so off we went for a little more punishment.

The Skutustadir Pseudocraters were totally bizarre and unlike anything we had ever seen. They were formed when hot lava flowed over the wet marsh, causing steam explosions and creating these perfectly circular craters that have now filled in with water and thick grass. The house-size craters line the shores of Lake Myvatn and the smaller Lake Stakhólstjörn like some forgotten place that was bombed extensively a long, long time ago.

There is, of course, a crazy legend about the place. Supposedly it was named after a renowned ancient hero called Viga-Skuta, the possessor of a deadly ax named Fluga. I have no idea what that has to do with giant craters, and the names don’t even match, but I suppose it’s always nice to honor the well-armed dead.

And in the end, it’s no sillier than hiking in the cold, cold rain…or not. In Iceland, it’s best to just smile and greet each day with an open mind and a brave heart.

We awoke to bright sunshine. The weather in Iceland is always on the move, and it plays a huge role every day. Because when it sucks, it really sucks. And it’s usually a cold and windy kind of suck. Several people told us the last two days were the nicest of the summer. It was sunny and cloudless, with temps in the mid-50s and a 12 mph breeze. That said, we always wore jackets and hats. But I remained a bold and proud man and kept wearing shorts. In fact, I might have been the only person with bare legs in the whole bloody country.

We left our hotel at ten and crossed a long landfill bridge at almost water level across Eyjafjörður Fjord. There were few support structures and it resembled a road atop the water. I guess the water level of the fjord remains constant. Let’s hope!

We climbed along the east side of the fjord with some outstanding views of Akureyri and soon came to the only toll road in Iceland, the 4.6-mile Vadlaheidar Tunnel—or maybe it’s called the Vaðlaheiðargång Tunnel—this all can get rather confusing because it appeared to have several different names, which seems to happen a lot in Iceland. On a map, it’s called one thing, but on a sign, it’s something different.

The tunnel blasts through a big bronze, metal-looking rock mountain whose walls seem to have been sculpted by hand—really big hands. There are pullouts and phones every kilometer. But here’s the wacky part. You have 24 hours to pay the toll online before a penalty kicks in and compounds every day. I logged onto the tunnel website at our hotel at the end of the day. But I was dumbfounded when they only charged me 1.99 Icelandic Króna, which is about $1.50. I think…

Our next stop was the Godafoss Waterfall. It’s impossible to miss Godafoss, the “Waterfall of the Gods”. It’s just off the Ring Road and from over a mile away you can see the spray rising up from the waterfall like smoke.

The waterfall was named after Iceland’s violent conversion to Christianity in 1000. The legend says that when Þorgeir Þorkelsson (the best name for a guy ever!), a local chieftain, and law speaker, made the tough decision to convert the country from the old Nordic gods to Christianity in order to prevent a war, he threw the carved replicas of the old gods into the falls to symbolize the change to a new way of doing bidness.

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If you ask me, gods and waterfalls just don’t mix.

There are trails all over both sides of Godafoss and a very cool bridge, and we did our best to hike them all, each offering a slightly different perspective. And even though there were gobs of tourons and tour buses, everyone ended up spreading out on the many trails, so it didn’t feel crowded even when it really was.

We would have liked to hang out at Godafoss a bit longer, but we had to go see a man about a whale in the town of Husavik, the “Whaling Capital of the World”, where we had booked a 3-hour whale-watching excursion with North Sailing ($95 per person).

We left the busy fishermen’s wharf at one, aboard the good ship Nattari, a handsome vessel indeed. We were wearing our bulky yellow and black, insulated storm suits provided by the company, so we looked foolish and slightly badass, and we headed north toward the Arctic Circle. And, see, right there, I don’t even like the sound of that last sentence. Mind you, it was probably the nicest, warmest, and calmest day of the year—in fact, the chatty marine biologist on the PA system kept spouting that nonsense—but it was still frigging cold.

We followed a swarm of trawlers and human-packed, super-charged ribs until we found three humpbacks about 25 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

See, there I go again with the Arctic Circle. But let me just say that the ocean is different that far north. On the calmest of days, there were these gigantic swells rolling southward that resembled the humble beginnings of a tidal wave. And when they hit the cliffs at Husavik, they literally exploded about fifty feet into the air. The ocean was clear blue and disarmingly inviting, but you wouldn’t last a minute in that water.

We chased those poor whales for the next hour. We were like a relentless pack of hungry hyenas.

And each sighting was the same.

First, a flat black back about fifteen feet long slowly broke the surface. All hands on every boat started freaking out like squealing piglets. The speedy ribs rapidly attacked like they were going in for the kill. Then the whale exhaled loudly from its blowhole, air rising like steam into the air. The watchers screamed with collective joy. The whale glided along the surface for a minute or so and then began a deep dive, ending with its tail fluke aimed up into the sky before dropping gracefully below the surface. It was actually kind of sinuously elegant, like a Chinese diver at the Olympics.

Then we waited a few more minutes, scanning the water for another sighting as if our lives depended on it. Someone eventually yelled, “There’s one at nine o’clock”, and we were off to the races again.

After three of these blessed encounters Inna and I had seen enough. By that point, several seasick people were hanging off the side with death grips. The cheerful biologist was teaching us about all sorts of happy science stuff, like the difference between toothed whales (killer whales) and baleen whales (humpback), and how whales sequester CO2 in their big bodies and then release it back into the ocean sinks when they die. And we were also congratulated for helping with whale conservation by buying our tickets, a portion of which did something to help whales.

The clouds started rolling in on a brisk wind. Enthusiasm was waning. And—well, let’s just say that Inna and I were happy when we started surfing back toward Husavik on those mammoth Arctic waves.

After our whaling expedition, we found a yellow gem of a restaurant called Naustid tucked away from the fried fish joints by the wharf where we gorged ourselves on their specialty seafood soup, fresh bread, French fries, and Viking beer.

The drive to our hotel was through glacial valleys and lush farms, interspersed with ancient brown lava fields.

We were staying at another Berjaya Hotel. They are a Malaysian hotel chain that is predictably hip and clean with a fine restaurant and bar. Think, Holiday Inn.

Our hotel had a cute white Lutheran church with a tidy cemetery right next door. I went for a stroll at sunset (9:30), and was delighted to find the place of worship unlocked.

As I opened the door, I was greeted by the enchanting sound of a piano. And there by the unadorned altar was a blonde-haired young man playing “Let It Be” by the Beatles.

What a perfect way to end another wild and wooly day!

I figured out the very efficient and straightforward Reykjavík bus system with little trouble and picked up our little Kia nut-bucket rental car at the Budget office next to the cruise terminal on the east end of the Old Harbor. Get the extra gravel and wind insurance for $20 a day!

By the crack of noon, we were driving north from Reykjavik to Glymur Falls, Iceland’s second-tallest waterfall.  It’s a rocky 3-hour round-trip hike to the falls.  The place was mobbed with tourons but the hike along the narrow canyon was spectacular with panoramic vistas, spooky caves, a scary river crossing on boulders and a big log, and steep stone steps climbing up the side of crumbling volcanic hills. 

Glymur means “clang” in English and it comes with a nonsensical story. Every natural feature in Iceland has a silly supernatural story surrounding it.  Glymur involves a mischievous fairy, a giant whale, and a blind priest.

After our hike, we ate at Englendingavik, a green postcard-perfect restaurant along a sheltered harbor in the seaside town of Borgarnes, a city of 3,800 known as the “gateway to Snaefellsnes National Park”.  The seafood chowder was heavenly and the lamb shank was old-school Russian.  

Inna guessed our young waitress was Ukrainian, and sure enough, she had escaped the deadly war with her elderly parents and three-year-old son thanks to a national program that relocates refugees from the Ukrainian war to various towns around Iceland and provides them with $2,500 a month. When Inna asked what it was like to go from her lovely home in Ukraine to the icy middle of nowhere, Snezhanna said the peacefulness of her new asylum had given her back her life and saved her family from the deadly rocket barrage each night.  Hallelujah!

On our way through a series of desolate glacial valleys sprinkled with the occasional sturdy white farmhouse with a red metal roof, the Ring Road took us past sinuous streams, shaggy sheep, and snow-capped mountains.  It was a dreamscape of epic proportions.

Near the seaside village of Blönduós, we stumbled upon a historic roadside attraction called Pristapar, where on a cold January day in 1830, a double beheading took place, when Agnes Magnúsdóttir and Friðrik Sigurðsson were executed. They had been sentenced to death for murdering Natan Ketilsson and Pétur Jónsson at the farm Illugastaðir. The slaying was quite brutal.  Both men had their skulls bashed in with a hammer, and then they were stabbed multiple times before being burned after the ladies set the farmhouse ablaze. The district commissioner decided to make the execution an example and a warning to others—and no doubt fan his mommy issues. So he hired a family member of one of the deceased to chop off murderers’ heads and then mounted them on pikes atop Þrístapar Hill for all to see.  Then he buried the bodies in a nearby field.  This was the last execution in Iceland.

We stopped for the night at the timeless Hotel Blönduós as the sun was setting.  It was around 9:30.

The old town of Blönduós stands by the open sea, where many of the original houses were built when the town was booming as a major textile center.  The old women’s school at Blönduós houses the Icelandic Textile Center.

We strolled around town and checked out Hillebrandshús, one of the oldest wooden houses in Iceland, erected in Blönduós in 1877 (it had previously stood in Skagastrond for 130 years), and a lovely seaside church. Above the sleepy village sat one of the oddest churches I have ever seen. It was gunmetal gray and looked vaguely like a fort. They really go in for stark, futuristic churches in Iceland for some unknown reason. And they are usually locked.

We had left Reykjavik only twelve hours before but it seemed like another lifetime.  We had driven about 200 miles but the sensory overload had messed with our internal clocks and turned our brains to mush.  We were like newborns with our heads on a swivel, staring out at the world around us in utter amazement and confusion.  This would be our brave new world for the foreseeable future.

Let’s begin with the fact that the Icelandic language is silly and unpronounceable.  The guiding principle seems to center around loading up as many consonants as possible interspersed with the occasional vowel just to keep the ball rolling.  Think I’m kidding?  The longest word in the language is Vaðlaheiðarvegavinnuverkfærageymsluskúrslyklakippuhringurinn. Nobody even knows what it means anymore.  And when people talk, it sounds like they are gargling with small pebbles.

Prehistorically speaking, there were no indigenous native Icelanders.  And the only local mammal is the Arctic fox.  It was a thoroughly empty place until the Vikings landed in the early 800s, and they were outcasts who couldn’t go back home, making it sort of like a Nordic Australia.

One of the first Icelanders was Lief Ericsson, the son of Eric the Red, who discovered Vinland (Newfoundland).  He found it by accident but must have liked the place because he returned for several extended visits and made some good friends.  The DNA of native Newfoundlanders can be found to this day in the DNA of Icelanders.  

By 930, the chieftains had established a form of governance called the Althin which is one of the world’s oldest parliaments. Towards the end of the tenth century, Christianity came to Iceland and all hell broke loose.

The Lutheran Church is the national church and they influence much of Iceland’s life.  They own a lot of property throughout the country and are pretty much the big dog.  But they don’t throw their weight around as a general rule.

For most of its history, Iceland was a colony of Denmark.  Independence came unexpectedly in 1944 with the help of the U.S. who occupied the country during WWII because of its strategic position as a gateway to Europe.  Denmark was overrun by the Germans, so they couldn’t really object or do much about it.  But the Danes always treated the Icelanders well, so Iceland has kept a lot of the Danish trappings and have a soft spot in their collective hearts for the Danes.

Icelanders vote every four years regionally, but they vote for a party, not a person.  Then the winning party from each area appoints the delegate that goes to parliament.  The Prime Minister gets chosen by the people and Iceland had the first democratically elected woman prime minister in the world.  The current PM is an outspoken lesbian firecracker.

There is no particular architectural style in Reykjavik and it’s all pretty bland and uniform if you ask me, though people are free to build whatever they like.  The problem is there’s very little wood, so they are traditionally built with stone and corrugated metal because they repel the ever-present rain and are good insulators.   But there are multi-million dollar homes in Reykjavik wrapped in the ribbed metal siding you usually see on the outside of a shed.  It seems silly, but Iceland has always had an inferiority complex because of things like their building materials and their goofy language.

Iceland is a conflicted country.  For instance, there’s only one liquor store in the whole downtown.  It’s called Vinbudin.  And the government places a 50% tax on alcohol, trying to discourage folks from drinking.  But beer flows like water and you can’t swing a cat without hitting a bar.

Reykjavik is home to 70% of all Icelanders and means “smokey bay”.   The Viking criminal king who first landed there in the 800s was confused because he thought the geothermal steam vents in the distance were smoke.

The first settlement is now a small square with some curious stones and the Skuli craft beer bar.

By the way: there were no horns on Viking helmets.  The notion came from early Christian drawings that depicted them as evil devils.

The Penis Museum is the most popular museum in Reykjavik.  The second most popular attraction is Hallgrimskirkja, the weird, modernistic concrete church that sits on the tallest hill above town and looks like a geyser made of white volcanic columns.  And the third biggest draw is a crazy hot dog stand near the harbor.  Hot dogs are a national treasure, like cheesesteaks in Philly.   The Icelandic hot dog has a unique taste because they add lamb to the mix.

The weather totally sucks in Iceland, but they pretend to ignore it.  Even on a cold day, people were dining outside at cafes, some wrapped in blankets.

The sun shines intermittently in Iceland and everyone, including school children, eats their daily Vitamin D so they don’t turn back into Vikings and go berserk.

The day we arrived in Reykjavik was Culture Day, commemorating Reykjavík’s birthday.  The place was batshit crazy—in a good way.  They had a marathon and a kiddy run through the heart of town which was essentially shut down for the daylong street fest featuring bands and fireworks until well after midnight.  There was lots of music all over town, but let’s be honest, Bjork was the only musician from Iceland to ever make it off the island and there’s a reason for that.  Their music has an aggressive heavy metal military beat to it with a lot of synthesizers thrown in to accompany all the screaming and yelling.  Throw in copious amounts of beer and you’re off to the races.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMOUaaKbj00tOklzPxlDCEoZbOV7nzR1nyHJWNV

Iceland has won the World Gender Equality award for the past 15 years in a row.  Reykjavik has the perpetual feel of a gay pride festival.  There are rainbow flags everywhere and even some of the streets are gayly painted.  Rainbow Road, a very popular shopping street, doesn’t technically have all the right queer colors, but that’s okay.  Icelanders think more about gender equality rather than being gay.  And everyone is on board.  Even the church supports queerness and they have a big float in the pride parade every year.

On your typical Saturday, year-round, the most popular activity in Iceland is to go swimming at a hot outdoor public pool.  There are spiffy pool complexes in every town and they stay open until 10.  They also have saunas and hot tubs galore.  And afterward, families grab some ice cream and a hot dog.  It’s the divine trinity.

Okay, nobody in their right mind would voluntarily live in Iceland.  I don’t care how beautiful and wonderful its natural wonders are.  The place is basically uninhabitable.  And yet, the people are obviously happy.  

According to the 2023 World Happiness Report, Icelanders are the third happiest populace in the world, rounding out the top three behind the superlatively happy Finns and only slightly less happy Danes—two other countries with abominable weather.

Of course, humans tend to drink heavily when it’s cold and almost a quarter of Icelanders fall under the definition of having a harmful consumption pattern of alcohol (27 percent of men and 21 percent of women).  

Then again, they also really like pink cotton candy.  They even sell it in big bags and jars and it isn’t just for kids.

I think the people of Iceland are rather heroic.  They have carved productive and apparently fulfilling lives out of the barren nothingness of Planet Iceball.  And they have done it with a unique sense of style and grace.  I mean, how can you not like a people whose most popular salute is Þetta Reddast, which means: “It’s all going to work out in the end.”